Page 124 of Breaking His Exile

“Do you want to build it with me?” he asked.

The question hung. Simple. Unqualified. No caveats about danger or worth or the particular calculus of guilt he had lived inside for eight years. Just a man asking a woman if she wanted the life he was offering.

Rainey kissed him.

Her mouth was warm. Her hands came to his face, her palms against his jaw, and she kissed him like she was answering a question he hadn’t asked out loud. He felt it everywhere—his ribs, his side, the places where his body was still putting itself back together, and none of it mattered. What mattered was her warmth and the taste of her and the particular rightness of her hands on his skin.

She pulled back. Her breath clouded between them. “I already thought we were.”

They stayed there. Beneath the Montana sky, her guitar resting in its case beside them, Tilly dozing in the frosted grass with one eye open. Valor Ridge glowed behind them—the main house, the barn, the bunkhouse where men who had become something like family were finishing a meal together. The mountains stood ahead, black and solid against the starfield, the cabin waiting somewhere in their folds, flooded and damaged and ready to be something new.

Evander stood between the two places and did not feel pulled.

He had both. The ranch and the mountain. The community he had spent eight years watching from a distance and the solitude he had built with his own hands. The belonging he had refused to name and the independence he had mistaken for safety. He had Rainey Beckett’s hand in his and her song in his chest and a dog who had decided he was worth following home.

Rainey stood. Brushed frost from her jeans. Picked up the guitar case.

“Come on,” she said. She reached for his hand. “It’s cold, and I want to see if X actually washed the dishes or if he just stacked them and hoped nobody would notice.”

Evander took her hand. Her fingers laced through his. They walked back toward the lights together, Tilly pacing ahead, the guitar bumping against Rainey’s leg, and for the first time in longer than he could remember, Evander Cole followed someone home because he wanted to, not because he had nowhere else to go.

epilogue

X stared at his reflection in the bunkhouse mirror and hated every inch of what he saw.

The black Henley was too tight across the shoulders. The jacket—leather, vintage, the one he’d spent actual money on—hung wrong no matter how he adjusted it. His hair, which had looked perfectly tousled five minutes ago, now looked like he’d slept in a wind tunnel.

“Puta madre,” he muttered, and tried finger-combing it for the third time.

River leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, grinning like a man who’d just found the last piece of a puzzle. “You look like shit.”

“You look like someone who’s about to get his face rearranged.”

“Threatening the guy who’s driving you to town? Bold strategy.” River pushed off the frame and sauntered into the room. “Where’s the big night happening?”

“Restaurant in Solace.” X turned back to the mirror, gave up on his hair, and adjusted his collar. “Nothing fancy. Nothing she’ll think is trying too hard.”

“Mariah Duval? The woman who ironed her jeans for a barn dance? She’s absolutely going to think you’re trying too hard.” River dropped onto X’s bunk, setting off a chorus of springs. “Which is good. She should.”

X shot him a look. River’s grin widened.

The nerves had been building since noon. X had changed shirts three times. Checked his phone every ten minutes. Walked past the main house twice without going in because Johanna would have taken one look at him and known exactly what was happening, and he couldn’t handle that kind of quiet, maternal assessment right now. Not when his palms were sweating through a jacket that cost more than his first motorcycle.

His phone buzzed on the dresser. He lunged for it.

Don’t be late.

Two words from Mariah. No emoji. No softening. Just the command, delivered in the same crisp tone she used when telling Tate to brush his teeth or informing a customer that yes, the peonies were seasonal, and no, she couldn’t magic them out of thin air in February.

X’s thumb hovered over the screen. A dozen responses died before they reached his fingers. He settled for On my way, added a thumbs-up for good measure, and locked the phone before he could second-guess himself.

“She text you?” River asked.

“She told me not to be late.”

River barked a laugh. “Of course she did.”

“It’s endearing.”